


Three Times Wanda Chose to Leave, and One Time She Didn't

by finnimbrand



Series: Wanda in the City [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, POV Wanda Maximoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 13:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8627029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnimbrand/pseuds/finnimbrand
Summary: Wanda tries to find options after Captain America: Civil War.





	

1.

The night air smelled damp as Wanda paced at the edge of the field where half of the Avengers, fresh from prison, were camped out. She ought to be sleeping, but she couldn't keep still for long enough. As she paced, she made an occasional twitching movement, just enough to bring a flash of power to her fingertips, to reassure herself that it was still there, that she so long as she could move she was still powerful.

Steve Rogers joined her at some point after midnight, a silent but reassuring presence. It took her a dozen paces before she even wondered why _he_ wasn't sleeping.

"I do not know who to be if I cannot be an Avenger any more," Wanda said eventually, giving voice to the uncomfortable thoughts in her head. "It was a kind of safety, having that name. It was a kind of ... home. A place to hide from the consequences of my actions, from the hatred and fear I had earned, and find redemption. You accepted me..."

She thought about all the reasons she had broken out of Stark Tower to follow Steve Rogers. She thought about the Sokovian Accords, named after her country, the country her actions had destroyed. "There is no home, not even if I follow you to Wakanda, and wherever you go after that. There are no Avengers to hide me, and Wakanda will not welcome me. They _will_ always fear me. And I am afraid. But if I allow myself to be too afraid, where can I go to be safe?" She laughed unhappily. "Do you think Stark would give me a room with a lock on the door?"

She stopped, and stood very still, letting all trace of her powers flow out of her, into the ground. When she felt completely empty, she looked up at the stars. They were the same stars she had seen in her homeland; the same stars she had seen in America.

"I am afraid," she admitted. "Of where I will end up. But that is why I must be more than a follower, to find my own path through the fear."

2.

An airport was not a good place to open up her mind to the ambient mental atmosphere. Too many people either worried or rushed or bored. But even with her mind mostly closed against the noise, Wanda knew as soon as she reached the gate area that Natasha Romanoff was there before her, waiting for her.

She scanned the seats with eyes and mind, but only her mind could identify Natasha in her disguise. Her eyes blinked several times, trying to reconcile the difference between what she sensed and what she saw, and then she went over and sat down in the seat that had been saved for her.

"Are you here from Stark?" she asked, but she wasn't sure how much it mattered.

"Going home?" Natasha asked in turn. This flight was to Rome, but Natasha was right about Wanda's final destination.

"It will not be the same," Wanda admitted. "But I want to see...that there is recovery."

Something about the quality of the silence made her add defensively, "It is my homeland. I know they do not want me there, but--" She shrugged. "I dreamed a dream with you and with Steve and with the Avengers, and that dream is dead. I...I was afraid to have my own dreams after Sokovia was destroyed. But now...

"They will not welcome me back. But where else is there for me? Perhaps they will understand, and--"

Wanda laughed, harshly. "Perhaps they will not, and they will put me in a prison. At least it will be a prison in my own country." She'd been thinking that deep down ever since she came up with the plan to return, but she'd never said it outright, and she suddenly saw the flaw in her argument. "They wouldn't send me back-- Would they?"

But there was only one prison that had any chance of holding her.

"I didn't go to Wakanda," Wanda said with a sinking feeling. "Because of the Accords. And they do not want me in Sokovia, not when I have flouted their Accords..."

They were calling for passengers to board her flight. Wanda got up and unfolded the handle of her suitcase. "All I want is options," she said with quiet intensity. "A dream that will not turn on me, and try to lock me up. A team that will not provide me with ultimatums. It was not me that broke the team. I just...picked sides. Maybe the next time I am on a team, I will be allowed to have more choices than that. Is that so much to ask?"

But as she left the airport, with every effort to keep her head held high, she knew that it was.

3.

Laura Barton returned from answering the door, with a frown creasing her forehead. That made Wanda, in her capacity as fugitive from justice, worried too. "Who was that?" Wanda asked sharply.

The children looked up, disturbed by her tone. "Just a neighbor," Laura said dismissively. "Nothing to worry about."

Wanda nodded, and the children returned to their interrupted art project. The explanation satisfied them, but after a minute Wanda excused herself and went up to the room that she was allowed to use. Clint Barton found her there, staring out the window with a flicker of red glowing at her fingertips.

"I am not afraid of your neighbors," Wanda said before he could say anything. "I was only thinking. What would happen if they did find out I was here? I don't belong here, everyone is the same, everyone fits in. You fit in. They will cover for you. I stick out."

She shook her head. "Would they riot? I know so much about human emotions, I can reach out and feel what they are feeling, but I cannot predict everything that they would do."

She shrugged. "It would be easier if I could," she admitted. "But perhaps that is not what really bothers me." She waved her hand and her suitcase floated down to the bed from the top of the wardrobe. "It was a good place to spend some time, and ..." She gave Clint a small smile. "If I wanted to mope, I'd certainly go to high school here."

Excited shouting about finished art projects from downstairs interrupted her explanation, and she smiled more widely. "I am grateful for ... to know that home still exists for someone," she said, and pushed Clint out of her room ahead of her to go see what the children had created.

1.

An unexpected knock at the door still made Wanda's breath catch in her throat, but it had been happening more often as news of her accuracy as a fortune-teller had spread. (I tell people things they already know, she told herself frequently. It helps them to hear it from someone else. It is a good thing.) More and more knocks on the door were a good thing too, she reminded herself now.

She floated the picture of her brother into its hiding place and put on the veil that she used both for dramatic effect and to hide from anyone who might recognize Wanda Maximoff, destroyer of cities, and went to answer the door. Her new client was a compact woman with dark hair pulled back into a practical pony tail. As she took her place at the table, Wanda took in the loose cargo pants, the sturdy boots, the level gaze, and quailed just a little as the woman took the seat across from Wanda. This woman didn't look like most of her clients. Why would this woman come to a fortune teller? There was only one way to find out.

Her first brush against the woman's mind told her that the woman was a member of the police. No, no, no, Wanda thought. She clasped her hands tightly under the neat white tablecloth that covered the battered table, and concentrated on keeping her breathing steady and her body completely still, no little movements that might give anything away.

This woman couldn't capture Wanda Maximoff without a lot more backup than... Wanda let out her breath, as her scan of the area confirmed that no one was lurking in the hallway or just outside the window, or anywhere that would be close enough to stop her if she chose to leave.

"Why are you here?" Wanda said in a thoughtful tone, dropping back into her fortune-telling persona. "I think you want something from me, but I do not think you are interested in knowing what the cards have to say."

"Sure I'm interested, why else would I be here?" the woman asked with a knowing grin. She wasn't going to make it easy, but she didn't seem hostile either.

Wanda leaned forward, determined to brazen it out if she could. Tell her the truth, get through it. "You heard about me, and want to know what my trick is," Wanda said. "You're not going to be satisfied with anything less than the whole story."

The woman tilted her head to the side. "So what am I, a journalist?" In her mind, Wanda saw that this woman knew exactly who Wanda was. The veil, the tablecloth to hide the power her hands were shaping -- it was all useless. Wanda couldn't hide, she was already discovered. But why had this woman come here alone?

"You don't like it when something unexplained is changing things ... on your beat," Wanda said, with a sinking feeling of inevitability. She could almost see the bars closing down on her.

"You're good, girl," the woman said admiringly. "So what about it?"

"I haven't done anything wrong," Wanda said.

"Haven't you now? Seems to me there might be something strange going on here. Some Accords being violated, just maybe?"

Wanda's eyes widened. "In my country, a police officer who said something like that would be looking for ... ," she said, tentatively. She couldn't think of an indirect way to say what she was thinking in English.

The woman laughed and rubbed her fingers together. "A bribe? Say it like it is, honey. I'm not here to entrap you." Truth, Wanda realized. The whole truth lay in front of her in the woman's words and in her mind. It reminded her of home, where the police were poorly paid and needed the bribe money. It was accepted. It might not be quite so acceptable here, but this woman seemed like she might be as reasonable as a Sokovian police officer.

It was Wanda's choice; flee, or try to make a deal.

"Aren't you afraid?" she asked.

"Nah. I don't judge by popular hysteria. I saw you working with the Avengers, I've heard what everyone's been saying about you since you started working here. I'm a good judge of character, that's how I know you're not going to take me out. Not like some of them. And I'm not unreasonable. I only want a little." The woman paused. "And I can help you."

They quickly came to an agreement. A little money from Wanda's fortune-telling profits, an eye on the reports back at the precinct to take care of anything that might get Wanda into trouble. After the woman left, Wanda leaned back in her chair and let out her breath. That hadn't been so bad.

After a moment, she laughed, feeling a strange sort of glee. She knew some people wouldn't approve of what she'd just done, but it was one way of staying safe. In a world full of ordinary people who didn't want her or her powers, who would do almost anything to control her, now there was one ordinary person who had a reason to want her around. Who trusted her to have standards in how she used her powers.

One person. It was a start.


End file.
